


your incoherent confessions

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, post cancer arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 00:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10525092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Based on the prompts "things you said in your sleep/things you said after we fell in love"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Original post: https://how-i-met-your-mulder.tumblr.com/post/156059738228/if-youre-still-taking-prompts-34-or-59-maybe

She’s been sleeping almost constantly since her release from the hospital, draped out over her couch or her bed, books spine up and page down beside her and reading glasses still perched on her nose. She’s been going slowly crazy with the lack of activity, especially in the hospital, so she tries to keep busy. One week into her medical leave, she calls Mulder at the office. “Thank God, Scully,” he says when he picks up, and his eagerness is palpable. “You have no idea how boring this office can be.”

“I can imagine,” she says. “It’s no better on my end either, you know.”

“Oh, really? You’re not enjoying being caught in the throes of daytime television?” She can picture him with his feet up on his desk, twirling a pencil between his fingers, as he says this.

“Mulder, you know me. What do you think?” she teases. He laughs, and the sound is enough to upturn the corners of her mouth. She presses her fingers to her lips to try and cover it. (The effort fails, of course.) “So, Mulder,” she says. “Would you like to, ah… relieve me from my boredom tonight? I’m buying.”

When he agrees, his voice is as warm as it was in the hospital, and it sends shivers down her spine.

She’s not at all surprised when she falls asleep - she warned him at the door when she saw the VHS in his hand that she probably won’t stay awake through the halfway point - but she is more surprised when she wakes up to find Mulder asleep with his head inclined on her hip. He looks almost childlike in sleep, the only time she’s ever seen him relaxed besides when he’s on the brink of death. She smiles despite herself and shuffles her fingers through his hair.

He snuffles, shifting under her hand and turning his face into her side. “Sc’lly,” he mutters.

She smooths his hair again in a strange surge of affection. Mulder has a tendency to talk in his sleep - they’d carried on an entire conversation about whether or not he could have orange juice when he was in the hospital in Alaska before she’d realized he wasn’t actually conscious. “Mulder?” she whispers.

“Don’t go,” he murmurs, his nose brushing the length of her t-shirt. “Don’t die, Scully.” He tugs at the hem of her t-shirt like she might fade away.

“Hey, hey,” she whispers, brushing his cheek in an attempt to wake him up. “It’s okay. I’m healthy now, remember? I’m not going anywhere.”

He sighs into her stomach. “‘S good,” he says. “Love you.”

She stiffens, hand stilling on the side of his face. “You don’t love me,” she says. “You’re asleep.”

He doesn’t answer; mumbles something, tugs at the hem of her shirt again until she has no choice but to readjust their positions. He now lies half on top of her, head resting against her upper arm and arm flush against her stomach. His breath is hot against her elbow. She tries to focus on the tail end of the movie he brought over, but lack of content for the middle makes it difficult.

She tries not to think about it, but she can’t actually help it. She thinks of what were almost her final days: of how his voice got softer at her beside, of the kisses he pressed to her cheek and the back of her hand. Of his face when she told him she was in remission. She watches the list of names go up the screen, pretends he isn’t there beside her, a warm, comforting weight. Pretends she doesn’t crave his presence. Pretends he doesn’t inhabit a larger part of her mind than she’d ever admit to.

It doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t.

“Mulder,” she says.

“Mmmf,” he grunts into her side.

“I think I might be in love with you.”

He doesn’t hear her. Of course he doesn’t. Still asleep, he readjusts their positions again, tugging her lower into his arms. He mutters something about orange juice into her hair.

She sighs and leans into him in defeat, closes her eyes. He is dead asleep, utter nonsense coming out of his mouth, and she really is tired.


End file.
